Japan Day 17: Hakone to Tokyo to San Francisco to LAX

I know this will be a boring post to read, but I need to write it anyway so I can remind myself that terrible things happen on travel days, you push through them, and everything eventually works out.

At 8:30 we were at our little bus stop in Hakone, and we caught the right train to Tokyo. On the train, I opened the American Airlines app and saw that our flight had been delayed six hours. Instead of departing at 8:30 PM, it was now scheduled for 2:40 AM. Ugh.

To make things more stressful, Brenna and Matt had just bought a house, and we were co-signing the loan. Escrow was supposed to close the day after we got home, which meant we had to sign the papers the very day we landed. We had arranged a super-complicated plan to sign everything at Kelly’s house in Los Angeles two hours after we arrived at LAX, and then FedEx the papers to the Bay Area for Matt and Brenna to sign. With the delay, that plan completely fell apart.

We called the airline right away, and after a long phone call we were rebooked on Matt and Brenna and the kids’ flight to San Francisco, with a second flight to LAX. I was really disappointed to lose our direct flight, and I also lost the good aisle seat at the front of the plane that we had chosen months ago. To top it off, Jim and I had to sit apart. And since the new flight left earlier, we essentially lost our last day in Tokyo. Later in the day, we got a message that the flight had been completely canceled. Grrr.

But after 36 hours of travel, we’re home. The papers are signed, and everything is going to be okay. The bonus was getting to see Kelly, three-year-old Derrick and new baby Zyon for a few minutes.